Developer Stories: Google Play Game Services

One of the goals of Google
Play game services is to allow developers to focus on what they’re good at
as game developers — creating great gaming experiences for their users, by
building on top of what Google is good at: mobile and cloud services. Integral
to that is an easy integration process, one that provides a whole host of
features with little engineering work required.

The gaming studios below understood the opportunity that Google Play game
services unlocked, and are starting to see real results following their
successful integrations.

Concrete Software — Straightforward, easy to implement

About the developer

Added support for multiplayer, leaderboards and achievements through Google Play game
services

Results

Session lengths have increased more than 15%

Concrete Software added several
features from Google Play game services into one of their top titles,
PBA
Bowling Challenge, including support for multiplayer, leaderboards, and
achievements.

So far, their users have loved the new additions: average session length
is up more than 15%. Keith Pichelman, CEO of Concrete Software, explains:

"The Google Play game services were straightforward and easy to implement. We
had been researching options for multiplayer services, so when Google Play game
services came out, it was an easy decision for us. Not only were they easy to
integrate, but the features have worked flawlessly.

"PBA Bowling Challenge now has real-time multiplayer which our users instantly
were thrilled with; you can see in the reviews how people immediately raved about
the new game experience.

"We also included achievements, leaderboards, and most recently cloud
synchronization from the Google Play game services as well. Using the game
services in PBA Bowling Challenge was a huge success, enough so that we are now
going back to our other titles, adding the features to them as well."

Session lengths up:
After adding support for multiplayer with Google Play game services, Concrete
Software saw an increase in session lengths of more than 15% for PBA Bowling
Challenge.

Glu: It’s a must-have for all titles

About the developer

Results

In Eternity Warriors 2, 7-day user retention is up 40%

20% increase in play sessions per day as well

Glu was one of the first developers
to integrate Google Play game services, with
Eternity
Warriors 2. Based on this first success, Glu has integrated game services
into several more games, including Samurai vs. Zombies 2, Frontline Commando:
D-Day, Contract Killer 2, and Zombies Ate My Friends.

Already supported in Eternity Warriors 2, they’ve seen a 40% increase in 7-day
user retention and a 20% increase in play sessions per day. Sourabh Ahuja, Glu's
Vice President of Android Development, explains:

“Multiplayer, leaderboards, achievements — these are all things that we
had to build individually for our titles. The availability of these features in
Google Play game services helps us make our games stickier, and it’s awesome that
it comes directly from Google.

"It’s flexible enough that we were able to make it interoperable with our
in-house systems. We look forward to utilizing game services extensively across
our portfolio."

User retention up:
Glu saw a 40% increase in 7-day user retention for Eternity Warriors 2 after
integrating with Google Play game services.

Vector-Unit: An awesome multiplayer experience

About the developer

Results

With an easy multiplayer solution, they were able to focus on the
gameplay

Early reviews of Riptide GP2 called multiplayer “one of the sweetest
cherries on top!”

Vector Unit just launched their
latest title, Riptide
GP2, with Google Play game services integration, and it has one of the strongest
integrations of multiplayer yet. Early reviews call multiplayer “one of the sweetest
cherries on top!”.

Ralf Knoesel, CTO of Vector Unit, tells more about how they've used Google Play game
services:

“We wanted to provide a really compelling multiplayer experience for our users, and
Google Play game services allowed us to do just that. With multiplayer, you can show off
your skills and your custom-tuned hydro jet in 4-way online battles with friends and
players around the world.

"By providing an easy way to power this multiplayer experience, we were able to focus
on making the gameplay come alive — like the stunts, which are more daring and
slicker than ever (with more of them to master), or the realistic detail of the water
splashing against the camera lens.”

Multiplayer and more:
Google Play game services helped Vector Unit pack an awesome multiplayer experience
into Riptide GP 2, so they could focus on building a great gaming experience.